


i hold the saddest song

by dansmithism



Category: Bastille (Band), To Kill A King (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 15:58:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15688689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dansmithism/pseuds/dansmithism
Summary: a third damaged goods prequel based on dan/ralph and how they ended up Together in the first place before things went awry later on.ralph has escaped the superior bloodline and run to the only person he thinks of as 'safe'; dan.





	i hold the saddest song

**Author's Note:**

> welp. ok then.

Blue eyes full of confused despair wandered over to the boy at the other end of the room and settled there, hovering on the image before him. Exhausted, bleeding and pale in the face, save for the shades of dark blues and pale purples that seemed to seep into Ralph's skin like ink into paper, adding to the colour and justifying the fear that was in his currently wild eyes, he collapsed against the doorframe and looked up at Dan's face with something that resembled a tired form of pleading written across his face. A hand, scraped and bloody - a clear indication that Ralph had fought his way out of something - reached out to the human's chest, slowly taking hold of his t-shirt and tightening it's grip on the fabric; holding onto it for dear life, as if it were the only thing that anchored the vampire to reality. With a whimper and a heavy, tired sigh, he attempted a step forward, only to find himself falling onto Dan instead, being held up by all of the human's small amount of strength, and burying his head into the lankier boy's shoulder. With that action, that physical contact, Ralph couldn't keep the emotions that were rumbling around inside his chest bottled up any longer and he let out a loud whine followed by a heartbreaking sob, which encouraged Dan to squeeze at him and pull him into a proper embrace, completely distracting his own thoughts on the situation for a little while.  
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry, I just... I didn't know who else- who else I could go to." Whined Ralph between muffled sobs and struggles for fresh air, still gripping tightly at the center of Dan's shirt with one hand as the other grabbed at the other shoulder. "I just started running as soon... As soon as I got out of that fucking place and you were, you were the only one I thought of running to."  
"It's, it's... It's okay." Stumbled Dan, squeezing tightly at Ralph's body a second time. "It's alright, mate, it's okay." His brain had stopped working and he became annoyed at its decision to make him circle the same sentiment over and over again before quietly supposing that this cycle of gentle reassurance was probably better for Ralph right now than the bombardment of questions that were bouncing around inside his skull like a bullet in a ricochet motion. What had happened to him? Where had he run from? Why had he run away? Why had what happened, happened? Who was he running away from? Why? What had they done to make him want to run away from them? Those were probably not the kind of questions that Ralph had wanted to hear in that moment and, so, Dan was somewhat grateful his brain had not forced him to vomit them up. "Come on, come over here, look... Sit down on the bed." He eventually encouraged, gently pushing at the broader male in a bid to force him to move over to the poorly made single bed that was stuck to the wall. After having gotten his friend to sit down, Dan pulled back a bit, glanced between Ralph and the half bottle of vodka on his windowsill for a few seconds before making the decision to move over to the window, snatch up the bottle and dumping himself on the wheeled deskchair by his desk and using it to make his way back to the distraught boy on the bed. "Here, alcohol is good for situations like this." He said, unscrewing the cap and offering the bottle to Ralph, who frowned at it, tiredly glanced up at Dan then back at the bottle before he, very cautiously, took it and swigged at it.  
"Fuck!" He cursed, feeling the burn attack at his throat as he returned the bottle to Dan. "Shit, I'm sorry... I'm really sorry. I know, it's late... I shouldn't have just dropped in on you like this but... But I had to get away from there, from them... From her and you were the only thing I thought of as... I don't know? Safe? It's kind of complicated." The babbling ceased as he watched the human across from him take a good swig from the bottle, too. "I don't even know where to start explaining it, either... Shit. I should just-"  
"Start by telling me why you look like you've tried to fight a bus and then go from there." Dan calmly ordered him, handing the bottle back. 

"I fought some of the guards off on my way out and managed to get away." Sighed the vampire, snatching the bottle and swigging at it a second time. "Have you heard of the Superior Bloodline?" He added as he returned the bottle to its owner, who gave an awkward sort of nod that told him that Dan had a vague idea of who they were. "The vampire cult?" The awkward nod very quickly became a confident one. "I was... Jesus, fuck, how do I explain this? Uhm, I was the leader's feeder for a while before she turned me a few weeks ago and she made me her Favourite."  
"You were a feeder?" Dan blinked, surprised by the information given to him. "And what d'you mean by Favourite?"  
A solemn nod from Ralph told the human that he was deeply ashamed of that fact. "Princess- Fuck, the leader... Mara... She has a sort of harem, I guess, of male vampires and she decided that her previous favourite was boring and upgraded me from being her personal bloodbag to being her favourite fucktoy instead by turning me and keeping me close." He explained, emphasising the last word in an attempt to get his friend to understand what he was getting at. "I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't take what she was doing to me, what they were doing to me, the whole cult shit... I couldn't take it anymore and I just, I don't know, I broke out of there and ran here because you were the first thought in my head once I'd gotten far enough away from the squat." His breathing was rapid now as the anxiety within him started tightening its grip on his lungs and making it difficult to breathe and he tried to swallow down the emotion but failed, breaking him down into a second wave of tears. After a low groan of a whine left him, he ran the back of his hand against his nose and sniffed, hard. "Shit... I need a cigarette."  
"Firstly... Holy shit. Second, consider me honoured by the idea that you thought of me as safe..." Dan's awkward attempt releasing the room's tension with humour had worked somewhat because Ralph allowed himself a smile and had even laughed at the response, which gave the human the idea to offer a soft, reassuring sort of smile. "And, third, you can't smoke in here, we'll have to go outside onto the courtyard." He informed the other boy, forcing himself up off the deskchair and grabbing two jackets that had been left to hang against the door of his wardrobe in the farthest corner of the room. "Have you got any on you or?" He asked, handing the vampire one of the jackets and shrugging his own one on. Ralph patted himself down then sighed and shook his head. "Alright. Luckily for you, Oliver's trusted me with keeping a box of them stashed away for him in case he decides that quitting isn't for him anymore... I'll get him a new box at some point, so you can have these ones, okay? You need them more than he does right now." Dan said, going into the wardrobe and pulling out a battered old shoebox from the shelf in the top half of it. He flipped the lid open, took out a brand new box of cigarettes and flipped the shoebox closed again before putting it away and making his way back to Ralph. "Here."  
"Thanks." Mumbled the vampire, snatching the box and immediately tearing into the cellophane wrapping, fiddling a little with the lid and the foil inside before, finally, pulling out a cigarette and putting it between his teeth.  
"Put that jacket on, an' all, it's fucking cold out there." Dan insisted, pointing at the black hoodie that the vampire had simply discarded to one side. Not wanting to argue, Ralph obeyed and slowly pulled it on, throwing the hood up before he made to stand, doublechecking the pockets of his jeans for a lighter and following the human out of the room.

Once outside, the cold November air hit Ralph's now sensitive skin like the sharp edge of a razor, making him wince and mutter several curses under his breath as he and Dan sauntered their way over to a rickety old picnic bench that was being held down by the weight of a ceramic plant pot that had been made the designated ashtray that sat at the centre of the table. Dan chose to sit on the table, keeping his hands in his pockets and his feet on the seat while Ralph opted to stay stood, somewhere off to one side, and lit his well-deserved cigarette.  
"You were saying about this cunt of a cult leader?" Encouraged the human once he had allowed for the vampire to enjoy that first deep intake of nicotine, briefly pulling one of his hands out of his pocket so that he could push his glasses up the bridge of his nose.  
"She's under this mad belief that I belong to her... And up until I met you... I sort of believed it?" Shame attacked his every cell and made him cringe at the very idea of him having been abused and brainwashed just enough to believe that Mara and Bloodline were and should be the only centre to his universe. For a while, before he started his adventures at university and before he had met Dan, the Bloodline vampires had their claws sunk deep into him and he had, once, been ever so willing to please his vampire mistress and her kin. His questions began when people like Dan showed him any sort of empathy and showed interest in him that wasn't anything to do with blood, sex, a sick combination of both or the cult. The cracks started appearing as soon as the human before him had dropped into his life and forced him to question everything he knew. What didn't help was the fact that he was also quietly harbouring feelings for the other boy and that he had started craving the idea of being close to him instead of being at home at Bloodline's Leeds headquarters. The more time he had spent with Dan, the more he had questioned the lifestyle he had been forced to become accustomed to and every single wretched detail that came with it. Mara's reaction to this was to claim him as her possession forever by turning him into a vampire and soothing his doubts by using her hypnosis. She had made him her Favourite and that meant one thing in their odd little laws: no one else was to touch Ralph but her. He was her's. He belonged to Mara in a bigger sense than when he had simply been her feeder... Until, of course, he had eventually managed to fight his way out and escape her clutches and find himself sobbing into Dan's shoulder. "You broke the spell... That tight hold on me that she had. You did that, you broke it... And honestly? I'm so fucking glad that you did - even if you had no clue that you had. Fuck knows who or what I'd be if I hadn't met you." He willingly confessed, punctuating the sentence with a good, long drag at his cigarette and a harsh sigh.  
"One of her closest and stupidest followers, probably." Dan sighed, looking over the currently vibrating vampire; making particular note of his hands and how the cigarette was wobbling between the two forefingers. He licked at his lower lip thoughtfully and watched in curious silence as Ralph continued with his cigarette, listening intently to more babbled information about what the cult and it's leader had done to the poor boy throughout the entire time period he had been attached to them. It was like listening to the plot of some kind of film or a nightmare, but it was Ralph's frightening reality and that made the human's heart break for the vampire. 

This heartbreak, for whatever reason, had also encouraged him to hop off the picnic table and slowly, cautiously make his way to Ralph before he finally gave in to an overwhelming urge to pull him into a tight embrace.  
"It's okay," he whispered, making damn sure that only the vampire would hear the next half of his sentiments, "you're safe now, and I'll look after you." At that, he pulled back somewhat and locked eyes with the vampire, who seemed overwhemled with relief and gratitude for that kind gesture on the human's part. There was something in them both that caused a warm sensation to rise and settle somewhere close to their racing hearts before the human made the first move by gently nudging his nose against the side of the vampire's. "I won't let her or that fucking cult hurt you again, okay?"  
"They'll kill you." Frowned Ralph.  
"They can try." Dan stated, still brushing the tip of his nose against the vampire's. "She doesn't deserve you, anyway."  
"I don't deserve anyone, anyway." Argued Ralph quietly, making an attempt at breaking the embrace but finding that he was hypnotised into staying right where he was by the human's impossibly blue eyes. "Especially not someone like you... Pure, innocent... Someone who isn't some kind of fucking monster." A harsh, bitter laugh.  
"Who said I was innocent?" Teased Dan, that cute, crooked sort of smirk appearing across his face and encouraging Ralph to laugh with more positivity this time.  
"I didn't mean it like that!" Ralph sniggered, pulling back so that he could take a quick, final drag off his cigarette before flicking it away.  
"Did you not?" The human was doing this on purpose now and it was an excellent tactic at distracting the vampire's exhausting, worrisome thoughts.  
"No-" before he could finish, he was accosted by the sweetest-tasting kiss he had ever recieved in his life and was genuinely left winded, breathless, by it when he had finally been allowed to part it. "Holy shit..." He panted, his mind totally erased of anything he had previously been thinking of.  
"You taste like the inside of a pub's ashtray." Sniggered the human before he took a beat, frowned somewhat and made direct eye contact with the vampire.  
"What?" Blinked Ralph, confused by the human's actions.  
"I've just now realised that I'm suddenly overcome with this urge to do absolutely anything for you and I'm trying to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing." Dan replied.  
"Why would you want to do anything for me? I ruined your night and-" another kiss interrupted Ralph's thoughts.  
"It's a good thing." Dan nodded, having apparently made up his mind. "You deserve some good in your life for once and I'm going to be that good... If you want me to be, that is?"  
"Uhm..." He paused, sifting through all of his thoughts before he finally settled on one that filled him with something he hadn't truly felt in a long time: joy. "Yeah, actually... I do."


End file.
